Internet Watch

by Kristin Iden

"Internet Watch" tracks new and interesting
developments in transportation resources on the
Internet.

Where to go for More Information

Quick, when you don't have time to find out the
latest standard that applies to the application of coal tar epoxies
or you need to find out the latest news in optical engineering, how
do you find the information efficiently?

If you don't have the books or materials on hand to answer your
questions, you can access the web sites of a vast array of on-line
organizations, commercial entities, and academic institutions as a
quick reference for highway related issues. This column will visit
a few of the larger professional and commercial sites. The next
"Internet Watch" will take a look at helpful academic sites and
links to help your research.

Professional Society Web Sites

The granddaddy of all professional organization
web sites is the site of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (http://www.asme.org). This site contains information on
codes and standards (the actual codes are not available on-line),
news from the field, publications, courses, and a government
relations section that reviews weekly news from the Capitol that
affects the engineering field.

Another place to stop for information on World Wide Web is
http://>www.chemcenter.org / run by the American Chemical
Society (http://www.acs.org/). The ChemCenter features on-line
editions of Journal of the American Chemical Society, and The
Journal of Physical Chemistry. Along with the publications, the
database search section allows searches of Chemical Patents Plus
and allows "telnetting" (use of the Telnet application) to more
than 190 other chemistry databases.

The official International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) site (http://www.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/ikeda/ISO/home.html),
while not complete, offers the latest ISO and International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards. The ISO/IEC Guide 25
(General Requirements for the Competence of Calibration and Testing
Laboratories) listserv by Greg Gogates is also available here.

SpieWeb www.spie.org/) is the web site for the International
Society for Optical Engineering. SPIE is a non-profit professional
society dedicated to advancing research, engineering, and
applications in optics, photonics, imaging, and electronics. The
SPIE site has on-line publications, new books, e-mail listservers,
and optical standards.

Commercial Web Sites

Many commercial organizations also feature research material on-line. The Journal of Protective Coatings and
Linings (JPCL) home site (http://www.protectivecoatings.com/) features an archive of all of the articles from 1995 and 1996. In addition, it has a searchable 12-year compilation of all JPCL articles and a selection of current journal articles on-line. The Steel Structures Painting Council, a professional technical
association affiliated with the publisher of JPCL, has more information available on-line at http://www.sspc.org/.

The Asphalt Contractor Online (http://www.asphalt.com/index.html) is the home of Home of The
Asphalt Contractor magazine. Features on this Web site include information from the Strategic Highway Research Program and sections on paving techniques, plant production, innovations, and safety.

Most of these sites link to other research sites as well. These
links are available on the Resource Center page of the
Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center site. If there are links
that you would like to be reviewed by the TFHRC webmaster in future
additions of "Internet Watch," please e-mail your suggestions to
martha.soneira@fhwa.dot.gov .

Kristin Iden is the webmaster/electronic publishing
specialist for the Federal Highway Administration's Turner-Fairbank
Highway Research Center in McLean, Va. She is employed by Avalon
Integrated Services Corp. of Arlington, Va.